Forming an idea of others
How do people start to build an understanding of another?
WHAT WE KNOW
Before we can understand what another person is like - such as what sort of things they are likely to think and feel and what motivates their behaviour - our research suggests that we first need to build up an idea of them in our mind. We call this idea our 'representation' of them. We can build this representation based on lots of different pieces of information.
For example, if you see someone offering to help a stranger in need, you might form an idea of that person as being kind. You store this representation of them in your mind, in a place we call 'Mind-space'. What's important about your Mind-space is that it's a place where you represent lots of different types of people. For instance, if you then see someone who gives the stranger some money, you might represent them as generous and, over time, you will build up representation of how far being 'kind' and being 'generous' are related. In this way, if you come across someone who completely ignores the stranger and you think they are unkind, you are more likely to make a second judgement about whether they are also generous.
We can build up an idea of people that includes not only their personality traits, but also things like their intelligence or how good their memory is. ​Our research shows that we use this representation of people to help us make judgements about the mental states a person has (i.e. their thoughts, desires, intentions, and beliefs) and it also helps us decide what emotion they are feeling based on their facial expression.
WHY THIS MATTERS
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Having these representations in your 'mind-space' is important because they will affect the judgements you make about people. For instance, once you represent someone as kind, it's more likely that you'll also expect them to help others when given the opportunity to do so.
But imagine your initial representation is wrong. What if, actually, this person is not really kind at all. Because you've represented them as kind, you'll expect them to help other people. But if this is wrong, and they are actually unkind, it's less likely that this expectation is accurate or realistic.
This is why it really matters that these initial representations are accurate. This will depend, partly, on how these representations are built. For instance, some of them will be built up from your direct experience of someone's behaviour, like in the example above, and the more behaviour you see of them, the more complete this representation will be.
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But what of people we don't have direct experience with; like the people we read about in the media, or people who have got very different life experiences to ourselves? Our representations of these people are likely to be built up from less, or more simplistic information that may or may not be accurate. This is going to make our judgements about them simplistic and inaccurate too. ​
YOUR UNIQUE EXPERIENCE IS IMPORTANT
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We build up representations of people through our experience, so our unique experience is important. The way we come to think certain traits are related, and what sort of behaviours we can expect of people who have those traits, depend on the sorts of people we have met. Read more about the impact of your experience here.
THE IMPACT OF TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES​
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If your prior experience of people includes, for instance, adverse childhood experiences, the way you represent other people's minds as a result will be slightly different. Read more about what our research found about the impact of trauma here.
THE IMPACT OF LANAGUGE
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We build these representations in lots of different ways, and the language we use to describe other people can impact how we represent them. This is important in childhood, when we're learning how to think about other people. You can read more about the influence of language in childhood here. But the use of language is also important in adulthood, like when we are reading about other people in the media. You can learn more about the influence of language in adulthood here.